One Show Just Tied This Is Us As The Year's Highest-Rated New Series

Last year had a ton of great new TV shows for audiences to get wrapped up in, with several of them making their debuts during the first half of the 2016-2017 season. And before this past Sunday night, NBC's heart-swelling dramaThis Is Us was the freshman series to earn the highest rating in the all-important 18-49 demographic, but that series will now share the accolade with an arguably unlikely parter: the hilariously bawdy new comedy The Mick. We assume the Fox show's title character would want to celebrate with many tipped bottles of the temporarily-full-of-alcohol variety.

Just as This Is Us did with its series premiere back in September, The Mick earned an impressive 2.8 rating in adults 18-49 years old when Live+Same Day tallies were in. That's huge, since The Mick is the first solo leading gig for It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's insanely funny Kaitlin Olson, and neither the actress nor the show's adult sense of humor were automatically expected to bring viewers in. I loved The Mick - as I go on about in my review - so I'm pumped to see it getting off to such a good start.

Fox execs are definitely paying attention, but they're also aware that The Mick's winning demo debut was in part due to its intentional premiere placement in the timeslot that immediately followed the network's post-game NFL coverage. The Simpsons has long experienced boosts of this sort due to football, even in its current 28th season, and Son of Zorn also premiered impressively in the key demo (2.4 rating) before falling off a bit with viewers. Hopefully The Mick holds onto its audience more successfully.

Another devil's advocate piece of information comes in the fact that The Mick may have tied This Is Us' demo rating, but the comedy did not catch up with the drama as far as the total number of viewers went. Fox's comedy, created by It's Always Sunny writers (and brothers) Dave and John Chernin, was viewed by 8.6 million people on Sunday night, which is pretty stellar for any new comedy, especially on a holiday. But This Is Us was actually more impressive, bowing to a full audience of 10.7 million.

For a closer point of comparison, CBS debuted its new drama Ransom on Sunday night following NFL coverage, and ABC' s To Tell the Truth ushered in Season 2. Both fell to The Mick in both total viewers and demo rating, with Ransom being watched by 7.05 million pairs of eyeballs for a 0.9 rating for adults 18-49, while the game show's return earned a less desirable 0.7 demo rating, according to Deadline. It should surprise no one that NBC's tight-knit Sunday Night Football contest between the Green Bay Packers and the Detroit Lions was the night's overall winner, earning north of a 6.7 rating, with well over 21 million total viewers. But whatever. None of those other shows featured this face.

With the real ratings test left to come, The Mick will hit its regular timeslot on Fox starting Tuesday, January 3, at 8:30 p.m. ET (Watch it.) To see what else is coming to TV in the near future, check out our midseason premiere schedule.